Back in the day when a TV and VCR would be wheeled in to show this video. Simpler happier times

I'd watch this if it was a sitcom tbh.

FFS I haven't sold a car since opening 2 years ago and all I needed to do was wash the cars I wish I watched this video 2 years ago!!!!!

I worked at a Mazda dealer in the late 80s - second hand cars would sit on the lot for over a year getting covered in dust and bird poo . Then the salesmen would complain about the lack of money coming in .

That boggles the brain that a training video was required for that!!!! Absolutely class.

Jeff went down for 15 years for strangling the rag-time pianist.

They actually had to make a video to point out that a car needs to be cleaned and shouldn’t have ashtrays full of cigarette buds in order to sell them quickly?! I guess they were pretty thick in the ‘80s...

I was a car salesman back when this was filmed, and the bit about the couple wanting top book for their cavalier because that’s what vauxhall had offered them, brought back memories, it’s at that point in negotiations where a good salesman stood out from an average one. I’d have offered them less but pointed out to them the benefits of buying the Sierra over another cavalier, ie, the Sierra has better spec, doesn’t depreciate as much ,etc etc. I was good at it, happy memories.

Another thing to consider whilst this training video shows an extreme situation played for comedy the car manufacturers were facing serious issues changing attitudes in their dealer networks, there were some real dinosaurs out there who were complacent about how customers could be treated especially when it came to used car sales. The special clients were the company car buyers who could choose what they wanted, people seeking a used car were very much treated in a manner of "beggars can't be choosey" considering for the average middle class family used was the only choice they had. Higher mileages, more than one previous owner and some rust were acceptable for many buyers as that was the only choice they had. There was no internet, so the customers couldn't shop around in the same way now and often your choice was down to what was available in the local area, buying a car from a Manufacturer main dealer was also seen as a safer choice rather than an independent. Both cars shown here the Cavalier and the Sierra would have been desirable choices for family buyers. The Sierra had a full main dealer service history and no obvious corrosion so even with 88,000 on the clock would have been snapped up by a family with two or three children...if it had been the estate even better! I should know my parents purchased a yellow ex BT Sierra estate from the local Branch of Caffyns in the early 90s, they were very fond of it as a family car and were rather upset when they were 'only' offered £800 when they part exchanged it for a Montego Estate another desirable family car back in the day.

This is why you should never under estimate the power of a good valeter/restorer, worth their weight in gold for a good one and bless them usually the lowest paid🥺

If this is a Ford training video then god knows the quality of sales staff back then. Mind you, Fix Or Repair Daily comes to mind 😂

Remove taxi sign from old taxi, genius

An unmolested RS500 went for sale today.....£105950. That's almost kept up with the house appreciation, not bad for a Dagenham Dustbin.

Fascinating example of a bygone era, for those asking why would they even try to sale cars without cleaning them first it is intentionally over the top due to it being a sales training video. We also need to consider how different the car market was at that time, the majority of middle class car buyers at the time could not afford to buy a new car. The used car market was huge at the time and it was essential for the dealerships to get the maximum return on part exchanges as that was a significant part of their business. A decade later the bottom fell out of the used car market and that was due to a major changes in the car market due to a couple of factors the consumer credit boom and increased taxation on company cars. With the introduction of easy consumer credit all of a sudden people could afford to buy via finance a new car, this came at the same time as a slew of excellent Renault, Peugeot, Citreon and Fiat cars that had very good corrosion protection. On top of that safety became a major factor for those domestic buyers now able to buy a new car, a car being Euro NCAP 5 became an important sales factor but also hindered used car sales due to them being seen as more dangerous. At the same time taxes on company cars shot up, this meant many company car drivers switched to a car allowance and again made their own buying choice. Company cars were a major source of cars for the used market. Now buyers are more concerned about the monthly payment than the overall price and the used cars for sale will be nearly new having come recently out of a finance plan usually with a service plan as well. Any really bad car that comes in goes for scrap these days and the dealers won't even bother with them when it comes to selling them on.

The cavalier lasted until July 2001, However, Sierra's plate comes back to a different vehicle so its history is unknown.

So hang on hang on.... it took them 3 weeks to realise that the cars needed a clean?!! WTF!!😂

Worked as a workshop supervisor at a main dealer in the eighties and the salesmen had a hard life; no irony. New and used car prep always went to the back of the workshop loading queue and they used to beg to get their cars through on the date promised to the customer. Their sales manager often baulked at spending more than the absolute minimum necessary to get the cars out of the door and tight margins meant that sometimes their commission on a sale was minimal. When you add the long hours and unhealthy lifestyle it wasn't a great career choice.

Why would you even try to sell a car without at least washing it? Fantastic acting as well...

It's very true. A scruffy untidy car with dirty body / paintwork, ashtrays full of cigarette butts and ash, and other maladies is a bad reflection on your car dealership.

I can’t wait for the next episode!! 😀

Yesterday's car salesmen and women watching this training video=parents of kids with possible OCD detailing their cars every weekend (I'm not quite full on, but my cars get very good products to shine when i start detailing)

Enjoyed my Saturday sierra fix and the acting was above and beyond that of coronation st 👍

Moral of the story - don’t give your boss a great idea even if it’s blindingly obvious,then take weekend off!

Quality vid, this showed what I already knew. Shame my local Ford dealer probably not watched this. My latest car , not a Ford , came with an iPad holder, dirty carpets , milk splashed on the back seats and windows and isofix caps missing. So I got it 2k under retail sold from a car supermarket , however not been through the books, spent £200 bingo mint car for less than trade.

The motor trade in a nutshell. Over-paid ponces creaming bonus while everyone else actually does the work. Nothing has changed, there are no changes to see here! lol

Those door slam noises 😂 typical tin can Ford. Could have dubbed them over haha

Great Video. Lots of nice things and positive things to take away from. Great reviews. Mr. Derrius Branch

Presentation is all important. Great video😊😊

In the past the ford dealerships like this hid all of there non ford products around the back, dont want to help the competitors brands lol

So this is what Lynne did before working for Alan Partridge. Hope she got her Benidorm holiday.

Almost expected Swiss Tony to appear.

They were buzzing at selling two cars, at a main dealer? 😅

In hindsight as long as the dealer was near a port then Lada trade ins would have been a nice profit

I actually went to see a car at main dealer and it was in a complete state like those two cars. 😅😅

How ridiculous, I could’ve overcome all those minor issues in that red cavalier! TIRE DRESSING & DIM LIGHTING BABY

this made me smile

I'm no car salesman, but even I'd give a car a good wash & wax and a hoover out before I offered it for sale. Shows the mentality of car dealers for what they really are though.

I loved watching that! Very....of it's time 😀

There would be no problems selling those cars today

I sell a few s/h cars from time to time and i,ll happily spend a day on one car to make it saleable,the extra money you get makes it well worth the effort.

Salesman 1: "Oh noes, we can't sell these filthy cars" Salesman 2: "Have you tried, you know, washing the damn things?" Salesman 1: SurprisedPikachu.jpg

Many moons ago got offered a job at Ford at their Edgware dealer. Didn’t take it. Now I’ve seen what I missed.

I actually wish the cars nowadays were like the ones in the 80s

The car trade's 'Acorn Antiques'

How bad were dealerships back then that they had to produce a video to instruct them to clean their cars if they wanted to sell them? Other videos include, 'make sure you put petrol in it if you want to take it for test drives' and 'why its a bad idea to leave them unlocked with the keys in the ignition overnight'.

I love these old videos.... funny really, no way that would wash (pardon the pun) in 2021!

It took the boss three weeks to decide to wash the px cars. He must have gone on to be the PM of the country

Didn't realise it happened back then, I thought people paid the going rate for their new car and accepted whatever was offered for their part exchange. There was no way for the customer to check their p/x price in those days. This sales person selling a p/x to the sales manager is still a regular occurrence. 😅

this is fantastic. can anyone tell me the magic liquids they use to remove the stains off the outside of the car?

This is a training video!! . Bloody hell need to make a video to show you need to clean something before you put it up for sale . Just ask the man in the street , he will tell you want to do 😂 alot cheaper as well .

Did they really make salesmen sit through a 15 minute movie which basically said "wash your car before you sell it"? :-D

God this is like a real life episode of white gold

Hi Mr. Derrius Branch Checking in.

Am I living in a parallel world. The Manager should not be put in charge of a creche and the two useless salespeople would have been kicked up the road about a day after starting.

Strike a light, it’s Gordon! 2:09

Spraying the Sierra meant leaks into the interior and in the engine bay a refuse to start!

Hot thumbnail

And the people who get paid the least in the garage make a dog of a car into a shiny car that can sell.Some things in the trade wont ever change...

Im a simple man, i see a ford sierra, i click

those Cavaliers were real horse manure, even back then!

Where there's muck there's brass!

Biggest mistake is to sell on price. Sell the product, show them what you can do, build desire.

A full valet and machine polish with a carpet shampoo would have the Cavalier looking better.

I can only infer from this painful episode that the calibre of 1980s Ford dealers wasn't very high.

I literally can understand every third word I can govn’r. Face palm and what in the heck is Benidorm ??!! This is seriously like an alternative universe

Sierra was awesome

Car detailing in the 80's was apparently shocking, some old guy in Wellies and a dirty rag!

Hard to believe that a company felt the need to spend money on making a training film to explain what is blindingly obvious.

I went through this bollox for 30 plus years , The training vids made us all cringe , it was All so far away from reality , the key was to Take a chance on the deal , what people forget is that the trade- ins were dogs , 79 Viva' s , Marinas , shitty Princess' s .. full of rust and no history , But you try and tell that to your so called " Sales Manager " . Out comes the chalk pen and its " Sold as Seen " Before ya know it , Thank Christ I'm out of it , 200 Kid .

Sierra😍

Is the garage still there? Doesn't appear to be a Ford dealer any more if it is

This is why I wont buy another Ford. Last one I bought in 2007, the salesman went round the other sales people giving high fives and shouting i've actually sold it

That was fun to watch.... is there a series?

I've always thought when you're asking more than £1000 for anything used, the very least you can do is give it a quick clean, and you would think this is the obvious thing to do. You don't look like a scrubber, and the car is better presented making it more desirable. Apparently nobody gave all of Facebook Market Place and Gumtree sellers that memo...

They needed a training video to tell them it's a good idea to thoroughly wash cars before putting them out for sale?

Barn Find cars - worth a mint in today’s market, providing all the dirt and DogEnds are still there 🤪

They should at least valet those cars before trying to sell them :)

SWITHLAND MOTORS IN 1996 AT LEAST EMPTIED THE ASHTRAY AFTER THE TILL😁❗❗

A primera vista... primera vista siempre engaña, si usted no sabe ver o no sabe que tiene delante...

Giggles at the taxi doing 80 thousand 😲❓ scrapper that 1 Dave ☝️ my vauxhall Van 😕 as JUST turned 188810. THING move on.

The level of contempt for the customer extant in the motor trade is quite staggering...imagine an opportunity shop selling blood stained clothes and dirty plates - they don't - yet they're only asking for a few 0.00p...not Grands!

... What am I watching!

What size engine was the diesel?

tl;dr - Just wash the bloody car before you sell it

So the manager thought dirty ashtrays and filth left in the cars was okay? Possibly in the wrong job the mate? What sort of idiot would try and sell a used taxi still with signage on it, and unwashed? Omg this guy was in the wrong job.

Bet that Sierra is worth a mint now 🤣

How hairy is his right arm

Lol, I've sent 10 (exactly 10) cars for scrap and ALL of them were cleaner than these!

Don’t they have automatic car washes in England?

and they reduced the price over a full valet ... seriously

You can after all polish a Turd

No tyre dressing🤔

Wait what salespeople didn’t actually realise they had to clean their used cars before putting them on the forecourt in the 80’s? Chuffs sake 🙄 did Ford actually make their staff watch this at some bloody Essex conference? Thank god for the XR, RS and cosworth models otherwise they’d have gone bust surely 😆

"Pre conditioning" = Washing car.

Be quicker and cheaper if they just did a before and after video?🤣

NSS

3:47.......MY 10TH BIRTHDAY!!!!! What exactly is a tight deal, anyway?!! I can't seem to find any definition of it anywhere.

So stupid. Dealers took in any old crap and then gave it a very good valet and cut the paint back. Average punter would just see it all shining and silicone shined interior. If you had a keen eye you could tell if a car had had a hard life.

and the award for world's worst sales manager goes to...

duh!..........................